Puppy Biting Training: You Are Doing it Wrong!

By far the biggest mistake people make when training their puppy is with mouthing and biting. This article will take what you know about puppy biting training and stand it on its head. When you’re done, you will have a whole new view of puppy training that will help you raise the best puppy possible and be an awesome pet parent!

Teaching Your Puppy to Bite

As you read this, millions of puppies are being taught to bite by their owners.

You heard right. We allow our puppies to gently mouth our fingers and hands and think it’s adorable. While it is pretty darn adorable, we are actually teaching our puppies to do something that we do not want them to do later on!

Here’s the way most people train their puppies not to bite: Teach your puppy to mouth gently and then tell them when they are doing it too hard. Then, after they get used to that, tell them to not do it all. Then make it the worst thing they could possibly do.

Your Puppy’s Point of View

Seriously. Think about it from your puppy’s perspective and it doesn’t make sense. Then we get mad when it doesn’t work. Keep thinking like your puppy and you will start to understand the right way to do train your puppy.

There is a better and easier way to do this! When we work with puppies, remember this phrase:

We must start as we mean to go on.

It means that you need to be consistent with the rules from day one with your puppy. The rules shouldn’t change as your dog grows up. They need to be the same. You and your dog will both be happier knowing the rules.

Dog Won't Come When Called?

Download our FREE printable cheat sheet that you can use to get your dog to come everytime.

5 Simple Puppy Biting Training Tips

You need to have a plan and you need to have rules to succeed. Here are 5 puppy biting tips to get you started:

2. From the beginning, do not encourage your puppy to bite, mouth or nip your fingers and clothes.
3. If your puppy mouths or nips you, calmly redirect them to something else. Remember, they are puppies, they have the shortest attention span on the planet.
4. If they continue to nip and mouth you, calmly place them on the floor and make a little yelp noise to let them know that their sharp teeth can hurt.
5. If they still continue to mouth you or your clothes take them calmly and quietly and place them into timeout for a minute or so.

Take it from me, this is a far easier approach. I adopted it from Doggy Dan’s video website The Online Dog Trainer. He has a straight forward approach to training puppies and he also uses humane techniques. You can check out his videos here, they are awesome.

Bonus Puppy Training Tips

Here are some bonus tips to help keep your puppy from biting:

1. Be patient when your puppy is very young. At 8 weeks old, you should always give them several chances if they do accidentally mouth you. Around 5 months, you must not tolerate any mouthing at all.

2.When you call your puppy to you, make sure that you have something in your hand to put in their mouth. Dogs use their mouths to show affection so give them something to mouth when you are giving them cuddles. This will keep you from setting them up to fail.

3. Stay calm. This one is important! Don’t start yelling at your dog if he keeps biting. As frustrating as this is, yelling will get you nowhere. (Another very old school training technique). This will only get them more excited and that’s the last thing you need!

Be an Awesome Puppy Parent!

Understanding your puppy is the key to building an amazing relationship with them. It’s also the key to being the best pet parent possible.

Once you are able to see things through their eyes you’ll start to see how your actions make them feel. If you want more videos, check out Doggy Dan’s series. He has weekly videos of how he raised his puppy, Moses, from 8 weeks of age. If you’re serious about helping your puppy in a kind and gentle way that will lead to an amazing relationship over time then click here to take a look.

GoodDoggies.Online is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

*Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
Additionally, GoodDoggies.Online participates in various other affiliate programs, and we sometimes get a commission through purchases made through our links.